


get the wine pairings

by familiar



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, First Time, Food, M/M, Past Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/familiar/pseuds/familiar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You go to rehab, go to college, join a professional sports team, live a stable adult life with your long-term partner, realize you probably want to fuck your own dad--you know, that kind of thing. Normal stuff like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	get the wine pairings

**Author's Note:**

> "Write what you know," they say. Really glad I made a sock for Check Please fic.
> 
> There's no incest in this fic.

The thing about Parse was, he said a lot of shit. Some of it was cute; some of it was smarmy. Some was arrogant, some was hateful. Sometimes he had insights, and sometimes he said the sweetest, kindest things. Maybe, Jack figures in retrospect, this was no different from how everyone else was; it was just that Jack was feeling pretty raw all the time then, and everything that came out of that boy’s mouth hit him with double-impact. Maybe Jack can’t understand it himself, but maybe people just—say shit. To each other. To hurt, or because they’re hurt. Maybe that’s what he used to do when he was angry or frightened, so maybe he ought to put his own jabs into context with those of his friends, or his lovers.

Also, one time during sex, Parse said, “It’s okay if you want to fuck your own dad. I’d be down with it. He’s hot.”

Lots of things Jack could have said to _that_ : “He’s not into guys.” “He’s married to my mom.” “He is my _dad_.” Instead, Jack came so hard some of it got on the floor, and they were sitting on the bed at the time.

So that’s the meanest, and the best, thing Parse ever said, actually. Until they met up later, of course, but up until later, back when it was still good—that was the meanest. It doesn’t matter if he got off. Actually, it’s probably _worse_ for that. Anyway, Jack buries this. If it was a piece of meat in his fridge, he’d throw it away. If it was one of Bittle’s Tweets, he’d delete it. If it was a page in his journal, he’d tear it out.

But it’s not, it’s a memory, and so it’s stuck in his brain. And he lives with it, though it’s not at the forefront. Every so often, while he’s on a roadie and finishing up in the shower, those words will edge in: He’s hot. Jack won’t let himself finish if he dredges _that_ up, but he’s been working on delaying and denial with Bittle for a while now, so he can stuff it back in if he wants to. He remembers how ashamed he felt afterward: panting, shuddering, Parse’s fingers still ghosting around the base of his dick, making him feel like he’d done something wrong. God, it was cruel. That was a cruel insight. He buries that shit as deeply as possible and prays it never comes up again. Jack is through with feeling like he’s got something to hide. He can go out to dinner with Bittle now and Bittle’s hand can rest on Jack’s thigh without him feeling like the bottom’s gonna drop out of this whole operation. More of that feeling, Jack pleads. Enough with the crazy head trip dad sex taunting. It’s in the past! Move on already.

* * *

It’s weird how long it’s taken for them to get around to—well, _fucking_. Jack gets a goofy smile on his face when he thinks back to the beginning of their relationship: it was sappy, a lot of kissing, a lot of handholding. They fooled around, but in this tactile way that kept both of them above-water, grinning at each other stupidly, whispering softly, gazing into each other’s eyes. There was a lot of talk about hockey—god, it’s embarrassing. Jack is so embarrassed thinking about it. Watching Bitty get out on the ice was like foreplay, and he would narrate the details of the game back to Bitty while they made out and petted and rubbed their jean-clad dicks together over the finer points of play rehash. Sex with hockey equipment was something Jack never wanted to do, but they fooled around a little after a game once at Faber, Bitty’s gear still on, in the deserted loading bay. It was probably stupid and risky, and that was kind of the point. Jack remembers Bitty’s hand inside his boxer-briefs, still clammy from wearing a hockey glove. Jack couldn’t think of it as public sex; he knew that place well enough to be reasonably certain no one would find them, and to some extent, that rink would always feel like home.

Still, it was one of those moments where they’d taken a level up, in sex, maybe in daring. They didn’t do oral for a while; for Jack it was odd to hear Bitty, who always spoke, saying nothing but making lewd sounds as he lovingly nursed at the little bit of skin under Jack’s balls. He didn’t come from that, but actually, the combination of that and Bitty’s finger pushing up against his perineum. And the noises, actually, those noises were…Jack had never heard anything like that before. Jack knew his anatomy pretty well, mostly from studying the muscular system as a part of training. Also, his earliest view to the male body had been anatomy diagrams. His mother had put parental controls on all of his stuff, mostly so that he wouldn’t search for himself, but, well—she’d apparently blocked out adult content also. His mom had held onto her college bio textbooks, though, and Jack had been pretty young when he memorized the placement of the prostate in relation to the ejaculatory ducts, i.e., they were pretty much right on top of each other. He was curious but not stupid.

It was never the sex itself that stayed with Jack; it was the other stuff, the stuff surrounding the sex. For Bitty’s last birthday he’d asked to eat Jack out. It wasn’t so much the tongue on his ass _per se_ that was hot, though Jack could always appreciate something in there. Or, he wasn’t picky; things on the outside were pretty good, too. When Bitty ran his thumb gently over the little pucker of Jack’s ass and cooed, “I’m gonna pop this cherry someday,” Jack very much appreciated it. He also corrected it: “I am not a virgin,” he said, almost embarrassed, expecting Bitty to apologize.

Instead: “When I’m inside of you I bet you forget all about that. Like you’re being touched for the very first time, okay?” Later Jack would find out these were Madonna lyrics, and it was uncomfortable in retrospect, but when Bitty was soothing a spit-slick thumb against Jack’s ass, it was hard to much care where he was cribbing this stuff from. He put it to good use, anyway. Jack had certainly never had anyone say to him, “I’m the birthday boy, and if what I want for my birthday dinner is to eat this ass like it’s a darn feast, that’s my business, okay? You’re just gonna lie there and take it.” Bitty had been groping Jack’s ass throughout this conversation, but apparently he felt like the whole thing was best concluded with a backhand to the left cheek. “I couldn’t bake anything this good,” Bitty said, like he was seriously amazed, even after a few years of treating Jack’s behind like it was a stress ball. “Sometimes I think you were right about the protein. Nothing’s ever been so good for me as this piece of meat.” Jack would have come from being called a “piece of meat” if he hadn’t already come from being slapped.

Jack put these things out of mind as soon as they were over, because he had to. The thought of sex—its realness, its depravity, how it peeled away your inhibitions and left you reeling _with another live human being_ —was too much for him to bear. During sex Jack was the weakest version of himself, and he was amazed at how reliably he seemed to choose lovers who were emboldened, weirdly strengthened by it. It didn’t make much sense; Jack did not believe sex was bad or inherently shameful. He didn’t judge other people, and neither did his parents. He’d gone to a pretty enlightened liberal arts college. It might have made sense to blame hockey, or at least the NHL, but he’d sourced too many partners from within hockey to assume a sport could do this to everyone, and beside that, playing hockey was the only state he’d ever achieved where he _didn’t_ feel hampered. And he’d been this way since long before he’d signed a major-league hockey contract. It was him, he figured, just him; just the things he wanted. He couldn’t live with the thought of it.

It reflected on him too harshly.

* * *

Jack’s team has an early-November game against the Aces at the front of a four-game West Coast stand, and he’s skating kind of wonky because of a strained hip flexor. It’s not so bad, and he’s been icing it, but the Tylenol the trainers are giving him aren’t really doing much, and he’s not about to ask for anything further. Bitty gets kind of pissy about it before he leaves town: “Just let them help you, okay? No one’s going to accuse you of falling off the wagon if you ask for something stronger.” But that’s the problem, to Jack: no one’s going to keep him in check. He’s got to do it for himself. He loves and hates that Bitty trusts him like that. It’s naïve and it’s so loving. Jack spends the start of the five-hour flight trying to read, and then he passes out. He wakes up on the descent into McCarran and tries to remember what he dreamt, but he can’t. It’s not that his hip _hurts_ , but it’s there all of the time, and he can’t block it out, and that’s the most frustrating. If it was _just_ pain, that would be one thing; it’s more that he’s conscious of his movements and can’t glide like it’s second-nature. He’s got to put force into it to overcompensate. And it’s fine, but just—it’s there. It’s there and he can’t block it out. He can hear Bitty saying, “You should have listened to me!”

Anyway, what happens is, Kent notices. “What’s wrong?” he asks, while they’re waiting to get back to it after a commercial break. “You look like you pulled something.”

It’s the concern in Kent’s voice that makes Jack say, “I did. I strained my hip.”

Kent has a soft expression on his face, which is weird, because every other time they’ve played each other, he’s gotten this vicious look to him, like he’s sniffed out the blood and now he’s clear to fall on and pick at the corpse. People tell Jack he’s a gritty player, but Kent’s a fucking scavenger. He’ll make a meal out of anything. It’s fucked up.

Jack has to wonder, when Kent chips the puck out of the circle before Jack can even get his stick in there, if the concern wasn’t just some means of subterfuge. Jack has never faced Bitty on the ice as an opponent, and playing against Kent (and the rest of his team, which is deserving of its reputation) makes Jack wish they could, somehow. Kent is on him pretty much all afternoon. Jack’s never had quite so much fun playing hockey. Kent is assaulting Snowy with attempts on goal like he’s possessed, but the weird thing is, when Kent actually nets one, Jack’s reaction isn’t, fuck, like he failed.

It’s, holy shit. Holy shit, that was—well. Jack’s reaction isn’t fit for televised hockey.

Jack would be more bothered if his team had lost, but they win. So, that’s all right by him.

They shake hands. Kent, as captain of his squad, is first in line. “Let’s get dinner,” he says, shaking out his sweaty hair. Maybe if there weren’t a line of guys to greet, Jack would have had more time to think it over, and then he wouldn’t have said yes. But, he says yes. “Guy Savoy at 8,” is all Kent says in reply.

When Jack texts this information to Bitty, the reply he gets is, _I’m so jealous!! I told Lardo I’d go see some indie movie with her at the Coolidge, not looking forward to it. I’d rather have French nouvelle cuisine, wahh  (_ _っ_ _˘̩_ _╭╮_ _˘̩)_ _っ_.

“So, it’s good?” Jack writes back.

Bitty replies, _um, yes!_ and then, _you’ll hate it_.

At first Jack is not sure what kind of restaurant—in _Las Vegas_ —would appeal to both Kent’s and Bitty’s tastes. Jack pretty much recalls Kent subsisting on a diet of Cheetos, dried cranberries, and protein shakes. Bitty’s the one who likes to get a room at the Plaza and have their anniversary dinner at Le Bernadin. Still, Jack is shocked that the restaurant is not basically an overblown Hooters. Though it is overpriced; the menu Kent picks for them is nearly four-hundred bucks per person _before tax_ _and tip_. He also gives Jack a hard time for not wanting to buy the wine pairings.

“I don’t drink,” Jack reminds him, and even if that’s not one-hundred-percent true _all_ of the time, it’s true enough, and also, Jack is already flipping his shit internally at the menu, which lists 15 courses and will probably mean he’s not back until midnight, at least, and he has a 9 a.m. flight to Orange County and just like, _why on earth_ would anyone take him to this meal?

“You’re right,” Jack texts Bitty. “We haven’t even gotten our first course and this is already crazy.”

 _Poor baby_ , Bitty writes back. _Do you wanna switch? I’m getting talked into staying over. Shitty won’t let me drive home._

“I thought you saw a move?”

 _The theater had a bar_ and _like I can’t do I-95 on two Gray Ladys_ and _Ugh I think he wants me to smoke with them_.

“Ha ha,” Jack writes. When he looks up, Kent is glaring at him. “What?” he asks.

“It’s rude.”

“It’s just Bittle.” Jack shows Kent his phone.

Kent peers at the screen. “Looks like he’s getting up to some three-way shit with your dork friends.”

“I think he’s just going to crash with them for the night so he doesn’t have to drive back to Providence.” He thinks to add, “They’re not dorks,” but he doesn’t, since he can’t back that up.

“Whatever, like I give a shit, good for him.” There’s the snotty Kent Jack remembers from previous encounters such as that time Kent crashed a party at his place of residence, the other time Kent did that, the time they had to hang out with Annie Leibovitz all day for a Vanity Fair spread on Olympic athletes, and Jack’s entire life between 2007 and 2009.

Jack then has to sit there as the sommelier presents Kent with a bottle of “the 2011 Côte de Brouilly, sir” and watch as Kent swishes it around in his mouth and makes faces like he’s trying to actually figure out what’s happening in there. It really reminds Jack of...well, sex, basically, which is weird. Anyway, Kent swallows it (he never did Jack _that_ courtesy) and says, “Yeah, that’s pretty nice.” When he’s finally, _finally_ drinking a glass of light red wine, he catches Jack’s glare and says, “Oh, get over it, you’re the one who didn’t want to do pairings.”

Which Jack can only sigh at because, yeah, that’s right. It’s his fault he’s trapped here. He should have known.

Finally, when they’re finally served their first course, which is a velouté of white asparagus garnished with king crab, Kent leans back and asks, “How’s your hip?”

Jack looks up from his phone. “It’s okay,” he says, though it’s actually starting to get jacked again from sitting for so long.

“Do you like the soup?”

“It’s okay,” he repeats.

“What the fuck, Zimms?” The wine glass is empty and Kent stares into it, scowling. “How you pull that, anyway? Check someone?”

“No.”

“Get checked?”

“It’s really not so bad.”

“It’s a long meal,” Kent says.  “I don’t mind hearing the full story.”

Their sommelier swings by the table, and asks, “Another, sir?”

Kent says, “Actually, I’ll see the wine list.”

“Very good.”

When he’s gotten the wine list, made his selection, and gone through the embarrassing taste-test again, Kent leans forward over the second course of the night and says, “Now I know there’s a story. If there wasn’t, you’d have told it already.”

“Ha,” says Jack. “It’s not much of a story.” He pauses to think for a moment about what he wants to say here. There’s no reason to lie to Kent about these things, and no one’s going to overhear him. They’ve done an awful lot of shit together, though admittedly, not for many years. A full decade. A little more, actually. Unless Jack counts that interlude in 2014, but he doesn’t, since he’d prefer to keep it out of mind altogether. He still thinks about his time with Kent as formative, though not necessarily in a good way, and it’s not like he has friends to talk to about this stuff, let alone gay ones. That’s always seemed fine to him, since he rarely wants to talk about this stuff anyway.

Jack cringes because there it is, that old canard. “Bittle was doing this thing,” he starts, but he pauses as soon as Kent’s eyes get big. “Uh,” Jack tries to continue. “He does this thing—”

“So he does or was doing a thing,” Kent says.

“Yeah, like, a thing, and he, er—” Jack tries to signal a sex move with his hands. The act he’s trying to describe is Bitty pulling his leg into the air and telling Jack to hold it, Jack shifting badly and pulling his hip, which was a boneheaded thing to do but could have happened any other way. He could have done this on the adductor machine, or getting out of his truck. For the first time in a while, Jack feels like his mouth was quicker than his brain, which happens so rarely that he’s actually surprised. “Well,” he tries to say, “it’s not a big deal.”

But, Kent cuts him off. “Is he intense? Is he like, _a beast_?”

“I feel weird discussing my…” Jack almost says ‘sex life.’ “…relationship with you.”

Kent almost laughs. Almost, not quite. “Get over it,” he says, with some cheer in his tone. “I’m seeing a snowboarder—you know, that guy from Pyeongchang.”

“Right,” Jack says. He is relieved, actually. Also, he has no idea who Kent’s talking about.

“He’s Czech? He medaled—I mean, bronze, but, what are you gonna do?”

“Well, you were always little too eager to check people,” Jack says. “Ha ha.”

“Ha ha,” Kent mimics. “Oh my god, you’re still laughing at your own horrible jokes, that’s—reassuring but devastating. Literally, he’s from the Czech Republic.”

“I get it.”

“Okay, but—”

“I just didn’t think you’d settle down.”

“Well, let’s see.” He counts on his fingers: “I’m thirty, I’m stuck in Las Vegas, I’ve dispatched with _all_ of my life goals, so—bang a snowboarder, why not? What else is a guy supposed to do? You get me.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees, right on time for his empty plate to be whisked away and the crumbs scraped off the table. His water glass is refilled, and he leans in. “I get you.”

“I’m just surprised,” Kent continues, swirling his wine glass like he does this shit all the time. “I always thought you’d end up with some—big jacked dude.”

“Why does that surprise you? You’ve met Bittle, he doesn’t take shit. Have you seen his exterior quads? He’s a skater.”

“Fine, I know, but he looks like one of the go-go boys who dance for cash at some sleazy club, and it’s just surprising to me because—because of, I don’t know, your dad thing.”

Jack seizes up. “My what?”

“Your dad thing, you know, you wanna like—bang your dad, someone who reminds you of your dad.”

“No.” Jack hates that, 30 second ago, he was starting to enjoy this meal. “Can we not talk about this?”

“Oh, sure. Well, what do you want to talk about? Politics?”

“Please no,” says Jack, and he lets Kent tell him about snowboarding (“I can’t believe you’re Canadian and you’ve never been to _Whistler_?”) for the next dozen-plus courses.

At the end of the meal, the bill comes. It’s placed discreetly on the table halfway between them, alongside a dish of truffles and meringues to soften the blow. Kent crunches into a meringue, which Jack declines. He gapes at the figures and tries to make a joke: “I’d think they’d be comping you all over town by now.”

Kent rolls his eyes. “This is Vegas, Zimms, not, like, Chicago. It ain’t even Denver, if I’m being honest. I bet half the people in this room don’t even know there’s a hockey team here. To these people I’m just another drunk tool with an AmEx.” From out of his pants pocket Kent produces said card, and he flings it down on top of the table. “It’s on me,” he says, when Jack reaches to do the same. “I miss your dumb face, you know? ... Never mind, don’t answer that. I know you don’t.” He hands over his copy of the take-home menu. “Here, give that to your boo, make him jealous. Say hi to his exterior quads for me.”

“Thanks,” Jack says, clutching the menu, wondering if he’s going to get up first, or if Kent’s going to do it. When neither of them budges for a moment, Jack says, “Well, I’ve got an early flight,” and gets up. “Good game.”

“That was hours ago.”

Jack leaves the restaurant thinking, wow, actually, it was.

* * *

Bitty’s working when Jack’s flight gets in, and so he takes a car home from the airport and curls up on the couch with a coffee and reruns that happen to be on the DVR. There are a lot of cooking shows, which Bitty records until the machine hits capacity. The most soothing of all of these, to Jack, is _Martha Bakes_ , in which Martha Stewart talks the audience through various projects. Her voice is very metered and Jack likes to watch her portion out ingredients. There’s something mindless and fun about this. Something about it reminds him of that restaurant back in Vegas, the one he’d gone to with Kent—so that’s uncomfortable. She’s explaining the difference because regular and Dutch-processed cocoa, which Jack is willing to bet Bitty has explained at some point. Remembering discrepancies in cocoa types isn’t among Jack’s stronger interests.

That’s what he’s watching when Bitty comes home, loaded down with his gear bag and his car keys. “I’m home,” he sings, tossing these things onto the floor. Jack gets up to watch him shrug out of his pea coat, hang it up, wrap his scarf around the neck of the hanger. Underneath his coat he’s in his warm-up gear: skintight and clinging to his quads; loose T-shirt on top. Jack’s glad he bragged about those quads, because they’re wonderful; Bitty teaches skating to twelve-and-unders, and likes to impress them with jumps. He can lift Jack, though he never gets to; they rarely skate together because Bitty won’t rent skates and Jack doesn’t understand toe picks in the first place. Once he actually managed to crash into a group of high teenagers on Boston Common because he tried to hockey stop and the pick caught somehow, unbeknownst to him, and that’s one good reason to never try that again. Also, Jack would never brag about the lifting because no one would believe him, and to be honest, he wouldn’t like to be seen being lifted like that in public, anyway, but—well, his dad’s got a private rink, and there’s a time and place for everything.

When Bitty comes to the couch he sighs, “I missed you so much,” exhaling into it, kissing Jack’s hair. “It was such a long four days.” Jack knows he’s lying, because the string of drunken texts on his phone say otherwise: _I AM NOT A LIGHTWEIGHT_ and _Okay I am not gonna smoke but I will help them make hemp butter_ and _Do you mind if I stay over in Boston tonight? I don’t think I can drive home after all, I’m hopping made_ [sic] _at myself!  (*)__(*)_ _it’s a frog I just made up to say goodnight XO_.

Still, Jack doesn’t mind being lied to, sometimes. Bitty pets his hair and rubs his thigh, asking, “Is it better? I feel so bad you had to play on that.”

“It wasn’t actually that bad,” and it actually wasn’t; he slept pretty well on the road, and by the time they were leaving LA and headed up to Vancouver, he’d basically forgotten about it. It’s not as if they haven’t spoken while Jack was away; they did, or they tried. But Bitty asks him the usual questions, about the food and the crowds, about different guys on the opposing teams, about what Jack ate. The truth is, when the team goes out he’s never in it for the food, and he usually orders off the kids’ menu, gets chicken strips or a burger without the bun, or something, a quesadilla with a side salad, that kind of thing. His tastes are not that evolved. But he gets the menu from Guy Savoy and lets Bitty inspect it.

“Would you absolutely die if I made veggies in aspic?”

“For dinner tonight?”

“Not tonight, no, gosh, I’m too pooped to whip that up. I’ve got a broccoli casserole I pre-assembled last night. Gonna do that with chicken drumsticks. I put ‘em in that buttermilk soak you like.”

Jack _hmm_ s his approval, but he’s not concerned about dinner, honestly. He watches Bitty reading the menu. “This is so sophisticated!” he enthuses. “Jack, gosh, you ate this stuff?”

“Most of it,” he says. “It was just—pretty French? I’m not afraid of French food, Bits, I’m from—”

“Right, well, usually when I make you go to dinners like this you get fidgety. Parse picked this?”

“Well, _I_ didn’t pick it. Definitely got fidgety, though. It felt like three periods of overtime, or something. You want to score, and end it, but it just kept going. Parse paid, though, that was nice of him.”

Bitty rolls his eyes. “Does he think you can’t afford it? He’s been here, right, like he knows we’re not exactly blowing it all, and you can pay for your own dinner—”

“He was showing off,” Jack says. “At first I thought he was just lonely, but then he started talking about some Olympic bronze-medalist. He kept getting pissy when we were texting, though.”

“Well, it’s not nice to do it at the table, though I can’t say I mind if it’s me, and you’re just being rude to Kent. He’d be annoyed, though, that boy likes attention. I wish you wouldn’t go to dinner with him at all—he’s bad news.”

“He’s fine.”

Jack’s face clearly betrays this, though, because Bitty asks, “What?” and when Jack shrugs it off he insists, “ _What_? You oughta tell me, hon, don’t make a guessing game of it.”

Quiet settles over them for a moment while Jack thinks about what he wants to say. Bitty won’t judge him. Bitty won’t care. He manages to ask, “Do you find hockey players attractive?”

A look develops on Bitty’s face and he says, “Like, yeah, duh.”

Jack blushes. “No, I mean—older ones.”

“How older are we talking? Like, Sharpy older? Because you know what I think—”

“No.”

“Um, really old? Like, pre-expansion era?”

“No, a little later.”

“Who are you thinking of? Someone on your team? Just tell me—”

“Not someone on my team! Who says I’m thinking of anyone specific?”

Bitty’s expression hardens: “Because I can tell that you’re lying.”

It freaks Jack out, so he bursts out, “Kent thinks I want to fuck my dad.”

A sharp intake of breath, and Bitty explodes, “Are you _kidding me_?”

“That he said it? Or that I want to?”

“Do you want to?”

“No! To both!” Jack pauses, when he sees Bitty’s not angry, just surprised. “Well,” he amends. “I don’t know. He used to say it to me when we were—”

“It’s awful of him! That’s absolutely shameful. A terrible thing to tell someone.”

“I don’t think it was meant to be mean, exactly. But I’m wondering—is there something wrong with me? More than I’m aware, anyway. Maybe I do? I try to think about my life as a series of decisions that add up to making some kind of sense, so—”

Bitty interrupts. “So, do _you_ think there’s something _to_ that?” It’s hard for Jack to read his face: curiosity? Some lust? Bitty’s so open that Jack can always interpret his expressions. But Bitty’s got a mask on now, trying to keep it impartial and unreadable.

Jack doesn’t want to answer the question, but something makes him: “I don’t know, Bits. Maybe?”

“You don’t know? But, maybe?”

“How would you feel if everyone kept insinuating that you wanted to fuck _your_ dad?”

“Well, I don’t,” says Bitty. “He’s a perfectly decent man, and all, though lord knows we’ve had our problems, but we’re okay now, and—have you seen him? That mustache, honey. He looks like a high school football coach from Georgia.”

“Which he is.”

“Precisely.” Bitty heaves a sigh. “This is why I don’t want you hanging out with Kent Parson. Oh, he acts like he’s being all nice and treating you to dinner at Guy Savoy, but he’s a homewrecker, hon, he gets inside your brain and he gives you these ideas.” He puts a hand to his chest and sighs. “Put it out of mind if you don’t want it in there.”

“I’m trying, Bits. But I can’t just shut my brain down all the time. I need at least _some_ intellectual acuity leftover for hockey.”

“I’ve played hockey, you don’t need _that_ much acuity.” When Jack opens his mouth to protest, Bitty says, “Yes, I know, I read your thesis, you’re very smart, hockey takes a lot of brains. I know, I wouldn’t besmirch it. Anyway, look. Even if the idea’s sticking in your brain, and you’re curious about it, I’m sure you don’t want to make love to your own father, you know, in actuality? That’s not how kinky stuff works. Like how I talk to you sometimes when we’re being intimate, like I don’t respect you? It can make me feel a little bad, you know? But I gotta remind myself, that’s not reality, it’s just a little fantasy that’s fun. Maybe thinking through it’s not so bad. We could—test it out?”

“Test what out?” Jack asks, though he’s pretty sure he knows precisely what Bittle is suggesting.

“You know. _Play around a little_. Pretend I’m your daddy.”

Instantly, Jack lets go of Bitty’s hand and yelps, “What!”

“It’s not so different from other stuff. Like, I didn’t like checking, and you kind of eased me into it over a couple of years, and then I could play a little better? This is the same. The idea of this is making you ashamed of yourself. Well, I don’t want you to be ashamed of yourself! Lord, Jack, how much of your life have you spent doing that?”

Jack says, “Well,” and pauses to think about it.

“I didn’t mean literally! Sheesh. Let me help you out. It’s…a lot. Hon, when we got together, you couldn’t do it without total darkness, without the lights on.”

“That wasn’t because I was ashamed, and we weren’t doing it. We’re still not really doing it.”

“You couldn’t ask for a handy without shutting your eyes. When I asked you if you were gay, you couldn’t even say yes or no—you just mumbled.”

“I didn’t have a yes or no answer.”

“Okay, but you couldn’t _articulate_ that. Honey, look, it’s not a big deal. Lots of guys have a daddy kink thing.”

“Lots of them?” Jack asks. “They _do_?”

“Well, yeah! It’s a pretty big, ah, genre. Did you think you were the only one?”

Jack doesn’t say anything. He did…sort of think that. It makes him feel dumb. Of course he’s not the only one, how stupid—just like he’s not the only gay hockey player, or the only person who ever butt-dialed a group text message thread. Maybe it’s cool, he thinks for the first time, ever. Maybe it just makes him human?

“I never thought about it like that,” he says. “I just tried—I tried not to think about it.”

“Well, Jack Zimmermann, you spend a lot of time trying not to think about things, is all I’m saying. So do you want to put it out of mind, and try to hide from this? Or should we give it a shot?”

Without thinking, for once, Jack says, “We should try it.”

“Okay! Oh, lord. I hope I don’t fuck this up. I’m not very—daddyish, I don’t think. Do you?”

“I think this might be one of those cases where it’s better if you’re not. But I can’t see you fucking it up anyway.”

“Well, all right, I’m giving it a shot!” Bitty gets up, straightens out his posture. He’s grinning, and he puts his face in his hands. “Okay, it’s cool, I just gotta get into the role here.” He shakes his hands out, clears his throat. “Jack,” he says, in a hokey, deep voice. “Oh, lord, that doesn’t sound right, I’m going to make a mess of this. I’m not attempting a Quebec accept, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“No, please don’t.”

“Okay.” Bitty clears his throat. “Go to your room,” he says.

“Our room?”

“No. Go to your room and think about what you did.”

“What did I do?” Jack asks. He can’t tell if Bitty’s setting up the situation, or if they’ve already started, or if this is some hybrid of both.

“You know what you did,” Bitty says, darkly, and Jack knows: it’s on. “Having impure thoughts about your daddy. Go to your room and I’ll come deal with you when I’m ready.”

“Okay.” Jack gets up and walks back to their bedroom. This doesn’t feel quite right just yet. There was some uncertainty—he’s not sure—but he goes, because…well, he’s not sure why he goes. Because Bitty told him to.

He lies on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, trying to get himself in the mood for this. He’s not turned on, exactly—more curious, willing, eager to do it correctly. He hears Bitty knocking around down the hall, probably folding laundry or putting away dishes. Jack realizes that this is part of it; the anticipation is starting to build. He likes to sleep with the even ticking of an old-fashioned alarm clock, and so he counts along with it as minutes go by.

It’s been 1653 seconds when Bitty makes it back to bedroom. “How’s my boy?” he asks, closing the door behind him. Jack sits up, and Bitty says, “Stop. No. Get on your stomach.” Jack sees he’s got something in his hand.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“Adult business,” Bitty says. “Get on your stomach. I’ll count to ten.” And he does, which certainly has the effect of making him do it, though he’s got no clue where this is going. Bitty gets on the bed and sits down in front of Jack’s ass. “I want you to learn that when you grow up, everything is just a pain the butt.”

Jack is very pleased with himself, because he thinks he’s figured it out—Bitty’s going to spank him, probably for whatever he did before. “Impure thoughts,” he’d said. Well, Jack is ready to learn his lesson. He squeezes his eyes shut in anticipation. His dick starts to get hard, thickening to a sleepy half-erection, which is sometimes the best he can do until Bitty lets him actually touch himself.

To Jack’s great dismay, however, Bitty doesn’t touch his ass—at least, not directly. Instead, he opens up a book on Jack’s rear and starts—writing? “What are you doing?” he asks.

“Daddy has some bills to pay,” Bitty says. “Lord, this stuff is boring. You should consider yourself lucky. How did we spend three-hundred bucks on electricity last month? I just have to write some checks. See, this is the kind of thing adults have to deal with. Not so fun, is it?”

Bitty is literally writing a check on top of Jack’s ass. He tries to turn around and watch, attempting to push himself up into a swan position, but Bitty swats at his cheeks and says, “Keep still!” It’s not hard enough to hurt, but Jack falls back down onto the bed, grinning. This is nuts. And less scary than expected! He’s perfectly thrilled.

Bitty blathers while he writes checks, folding them into envelopes. “I know I oughta sign up for autopay,” he’s saying, “but I don’t like those companies having my information on file. Grown-ups gotta think about all this kinda stuff, Jack.” It’s weird how thickly Southern his accent’s gotten, suddenly. Maybe that’s part of the performance. “You know I gotta take care of you. I can’t let anything happen to my baby boy.”

“I appreciate it,” says Jack. He does not make any puns.

“Don’t sass.” Bitty slaps him again, a little harder.

The novelty of this is beginning to wear down, and so Jack begins counting the seconds again as they pass. It doesn’t take long, but it feels like forever.

“Okay, got it.” Bitty gets up, moves the completed stack of bills to mail onto their dresser, and sits back down. “This adult stuff is boring.” He then slaps at Jack’s ass with the checkbook, rhythmically, like it’s good-natured. “But, I gotta do it, I guess. Are you all clean? Did you take a bath today?”

“No.”

“Do you think you can take one by yourself, or do you need me to wash you up?” He yanks on the waist of Jack’s jeans. “Sit up and look me in the eye when I ask you a question, Jack.”

Jack gets to his knees, spreading his thighs to accommodate the half-erection he’s still got. “I can do it,” he says.

“Good boy. Go strip and clean up, and meet me back here for bedtime. Don’t do anything naughty.”

It’s way too early for bedtime, but Jack does exactly what Bitty says. He stumbles into the bathroom and starts taking his clothes off, trying not to look in the mirror. He definitely doesn’t look like a little kid who needs help bathing, though he now regrets saying no because that might have been hot, having Bitty’s hands all over him in the shower. In any case, he does what he thinks Bitty wanted. It helps that he actually enjoys this part; he likes being presentable, worthy of Bitty’s affections; of sex with him, basically. He actually feels bad for Kent when he thinks of what a mess he was, figuratively and sometimes literally, too young to know how to shield a partner from the horror of the human body uncensored. Bitty is more or less on the same wavelength, even if he claims he’d love Jack no matter what and find him hot no matter what. You don’t wash up right after dinner, or steam-clean your couch every six months, or iron your slacks unless presentation matters. He wants to _be_ good for Bitty, but he’s not fooling himself. He ought to look good, too. So he gets ready, brushing his teeth and using Listerine, arranging his hair so it falls into his face the way he likes it, and mopping the sweat from under his arms. He puts on another layer of antiperspirant and heads back into the bathroom.

Bitty’s sitting on the bed facing Jack, his arms around his left knee, which is crossed over his right. He’s still fully clothed in his skating stuff. “Stop right there,” he says. Jack, of course, does. “Good boy.”

He can’t help flushing hard when he hears Bitty say it. “Thanks.”

“Are you all clean? Are you ready for bed?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you naked?”

Jack isn’t sure what to say. What kind of sex game is this? “I’m—”

“Go put on our pajamas. Little boys don’t sleep without any clothes. It’s indecent. Lord! What am I going to do with you? Were you raised by wolves, boy? Get going.”

Jack scrambles to the closet, feeling like an idiot. Well, how was he supposed to know? Relief mingles with his sense of total and utter stupidity as he realizes that nobody would have talked to him like this when he was little, because he wouldn’t have dared show his naked body to his parents. He’d been a corpulent little kid, and would dread basic things like changing in the locker room, and having to wear a swimsuit. Seems weird that clothing is a secondary thought to him now. The worst part of this is that he never really did anything to _get_ fat—he just was, from the time he was a baby, despite the fact that he was a more-than-usually active kid. Nor did he do anything to lose weight; he’d just hit puberty and it had happened, slowly, without trying especially. He knows other hockey players also have big thighs and round butts, but his are so large that people have been commenting on them since he was 14. Thinking about this just makes him want to get dressed, but it’s not straightforward. He doesn’t really own pajamas; when he goes on roadies he sleeps in a T-shirt and underwear, and he and Bittle don’t really sleep in anything. The best he can do is grab a T and some sweats. He doesn’t put on underwear, figuring it’s more pajama-like if he doesn’t.

“Took you long enough,” Bitty says; he’s sitting on the bed looking at his phone, clicking around, doing who knows what. He looks up and puts it aside. “Are you ready for bed?”

“Yeah,” Jack confirms.

“Okay.” Bitty gets up, stretches out, and pulls up the covers. It takes a sec, because he keeps the bed made tightly, with the duvet folded just so and many decorative shams and so forth. Jack used to just sleep on his old college sheets, which were soft flannel, but Bitty insisted they upgrade to ghastly overpriced Italian cotton sheets that Jack has to admit are actually amazing and he sleeps beautifully on them. They’re not the best for sex since they’re annoying to clean, but they try to put down towels, and for the most part, Bitty deals with it. He pats the bed where he’s made a little opening for Jack to slip into. “Come on,” he says, in a soft voice. “Daddy’s gonna tuck you in.”

Jack’s not sure if this is arousing him further or not, but he does what Bitty says and gets under the covers. Bitty tucks him in—no one’s ever done that before, actually, by shoving the covers under his hips and making sure he’s nearly bound to the bed.

Bitty runs his fingers through Jack’s hair and, using two of them, strokes his cheek, saying, “You’re my good boy. You did everything I asked, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you earn a goodnight kiss?”

“I think so,” says Jack.

“Do you want one?”

Jack nods. “Please.”

So Bitty leans in to kiss him, lightly, on the cheek. He puts his hand against Jack’s chest, and kisses his other cheek, his nose, both of his eyelids. He kisses Jack’s lips last, and it’s so light, he barely feels the press of Bitty’s mouth against his. It’s sweet, almost. This is pretty much the weirdest thing they’ve ever done.

“You’re so good,” Bitty says. “What did I do to deserve such a good, good boy?” Jack doesn’t answer, because he can’t. He doesn’t know. He feels neither good nor bad, just there, hot under the covers and treading the water between turned on and just complacent, unsure what happens next. It’s genius, actually, just a state of weird calm. Usually Bitty’s a little dictator, absolutely filthy, but this is gentle. It’s _loving_. He wonders, if this is what he wanted, why was he so afraid?

“You want another kiss?” Bitty asks, and Jack nods. He always wants to be kissed.

Again, it starts light and slow, very deliberate. Bitty’s almost pecking at his lips, nuzzling there, like Jack really is a baby. In his limited understanding that’s a whole different game, however, from the one they’re playing. The pace of the kissing increases. He feels something wet—there it is.

“Can I kiss you with my tongue?” Bitty asks. “Sometimes grown-ups like to do that, too. When they love someone very much.”

Jack consents, feeling a little hotter now. They don’t kiss that often, actually, which is weird. Their relationship is very tactile, a lot of holding and brushing, and lot of—lounging? He’d never really thought about it before he was trapped under the covers, his arms bound to his sides, their luxurious Italian sheets pulled up to his chin while Bitty grasps his face between his hands and makes out with Jack like he's just some receptacle for Bitty’s tongue.

One of Bitty’s hands falls from Jack’s face to his shoulder, then his stomach. It creeps lower; they’re still kissing. “You’re so good,” Bitty says against Jack’s mouth. It’s not the most original thought he could keep repeating, but Jack’s not a drama critic. All he’s said are variants on “yeah” and “okay.” He’s considering whether to say something else when Bitty’s palm comes to rest against the partial swell of Jack’s dick, and Jack gasps into his mouth and sinks lower into the bed.

“You like that, sweetie?”

Jack nods, and whines, suddenly wanting to get Bitty’s hand more firmly on his dick.

“Shhh, it’s okay. You want me to make you feel good?”

“Please.”

“You know, we can never tell anyone about this, right? It has to be our little secret.”

For a moment Jack feels a twinge in the pit of his stomach—when they first got together, that was his line. “I know,” he says. “But, I want to.”

“You have to promise you won’t tell anyone. We’re going to keep it a little secret between you and me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Your daddy loves you more than anything, Jack, you know?”

“I know. I love you too.”

“I’m gonna show you how much I love you, okay?” Bitty doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s kneading Jack’s dick through the duvet, the sheets, and his sweatpants. That’s it, that’s the stuff. Jack throws his head back and groans. He’s pretty sure he’s sweating. He’s definitely full-hard now.

Bitty stops, says, “Daddy’s got something for you,” and gets onto the bed onto his knees. He pulls his pants down just enough, along with his underwear, to show off his dick to Jack.

Not like Jack hasn’t seen it before. It’s full, flushed, uncut, and neither especially big nor especially long, but defiantly average and exquisitely shaped. Jack hates to admit that he dreams of a big cock filling him up, ravaging and sturdy, but he couldn’t bring himself to trade away Bitty’s humble dick for anything. He’s never thought about his own—it’s fine, whatever, a little crooked and it gets the job done. When they first got together, Bitty would practically shriek about how beautiful he found it. To Jack, at the time, it had felt like a particularly calculated sort of kindness. Bitty had always handled him with encouragement and praise. And Jack _loved_ praise, loved to be lavished with it, loved that Bitty really seemed to mean it, and wanted Jack to know. But the compliments to his dick, even if genuine, rang hollow. He hadn’t _done_ anything to win or lose at any kind of genetic lottery; that was what was so unfair about it. His childhood fatness—no reason. His pubescent weight loss, unexplained. His mother’s expressive, long-lashed eyes and his father’s hawkish, prominent nose—they’re not features he picked out of a catalogue; they just happened to him, whether he’d have chosen them or not. So too with his neurological and emotional quilting; he hadn’t pieced that together on his own. It’s not accomplishment, he thinks, as he opens his mouth for Bitty’s dick. He can do this better, be the best at it: keeping perfectly still as he leaks into his own sweats, keeps his arms against his sides under the covers, and relaxes his throat so Bitty can fuck him for a few minutes.

“You’re so good,” Bitty chants, like saying it makes it so. Jack wishes. Now he just wants to be fucked, actually. Bitty gives Jack room to breathe, and falls back to palm his dick again. “You liked that, boy, didn’t you?” he asks.

Jack nods. Sometimes he doesn’t talk much during sex. He’s used to being with people who talk enough for both of them.

“Lemme see that ass,” says Bitty. It sounds like he’s slipping out of the act a little, so he straightens up and says, “Show Daddy your ass, Jack, okay? I wanna see it.” He tugs the covers out from Jack’s flanks, and Jack can tell—they’ve already burned through whatever material Bitty had come up with while he was emptying the dishwasher. Now they’re just winging it.

It’s a frightening thought, or it would be, if Jack weren’t so hard and so empty that he could scream. Of course, he doesn’t; he’s not about to have a meltdown, _be bad_ , jeopardize his chances of finally getting what he wants.

“Daddy’s got you, hon,” Bitty drawls. “Hands and knees, okay?” He tugs down Jack’s sweats and gasps, “Did you go to bed without underwear? That’s so _naughty_ , Jack Zimmermann, no wonder you want it so bad. You’re a little slut.”

“I know,” Jack says, pushing back gently as Bitty rubs Jack’s trembling ass. “I am.”

“You’d better not tell anyone about this.” Bitty’s hissing, like he’s delighted. He actually stops to clap his hands. “If you so much as whisper one word about this to anyone, I’ll tell ‘em what a little slut you are.”

“I am,” Jack agrees, because—he is. For Bitty, he is. He would be. That’s how he knows the game is working—he stops asking himself questions like, is it possible to be both good _and_ a slut? and fixates on the main event, the pad of Bitty’s thumb against his ass, lightly stroking.

“Open up,” Bitty’s saying. It’s pretty much what he does and says when they’re just have normal sex, just Jack and Bitty, not pretending or anything. He pries Jack open more with words than with his fingers: “Good boy, good boy. Look at how nicely you’re opening up for me. I can tell you want this, Jack. You were on that, um, field trip for four days. I know you’re good—I bet you didn’t do anything naughty like put something up here because you missed me.”

“Nope,” Jack agrees. He didn’t. He was good.

Gathering some of his own precome, Bitty slicks up his fingers and starts teasing them into Jack’s hole. They’ve still never gone the whole way, and at this moment, he doesn’t know why. While Bitty fingers him lightly, just up to the first knuckle, he strokes Jack’s cock and breaths noisily, though his mouth. Just as Jack worries that he’s going to come—when he starts thrusting into Bitty’s hand a little more sharply—Bitty lets go and says, “This is a nice bedspread, Jack. Don’t you make a mess on it.” He pulls his fingers out of Jack’s ass and slaps it. Jack can barely contain himself; he pushes his face into the duvet as Bitty growls, “You’d better learn how to control yourself. What’s gonna happen when you grow up and you don’t have Daddy here to tell you what to do?”

That’s so hot to Jack—he starts humping the bed.

“I said no.” Bitty grabs a handful of his ass. “Stop.”

This next thing comes out of Jack’s mouth so quickly that he can’t stop himself. It’s so raw that his ears ring when he hears himself whine it: “ _Fuck me, Daddy_.”

Bitty pulls his head up. “What did you say?”

Jack is horrified with himself, basically in a precarious state where he might actually come on the bed if he makes one false move. He’s staring up at Bitty, who’s got a big smile on his face: “I don’t hear you, Jack.”

“Fuck me,” Jack says. “Please, oh my god, please do it.”

“Say it in French,” Bitty orders. His smile turns from pleasure to…something else.

Jack just looks at him. He expects Bitty might make him, but instead he sighs and says, “Okay, Jack. You’ve been a good boy, so I’ll do it. This is something that’s only for big boys, so while I go and get something I can use to slick you up, you gotta keep perfectly still. No touching. No humping. Do you understand? If I come back to a mess on this bedspread, I’m going to be _very_ angry, and I’m not gonna fuck you. Got it?”

“Got it,” Jack agrees.

Then he waits. He counts to 394 seconds by the time Bitty’s returned, with a bottle of olive oil and a picnic blanket. Jack is horny enough that the thought of “But we eat on that!” only ghosts through his consciousness. He doesn’t care, is the thing. He doesn’t care, he just wants it.

Bitty makes him get up and they spread out the picnic blanket. “So you’ve never done this before,” he says, straightening the corners out so they’re even. This gives Jack a nice view of his dick, which is so wet and hard and it takes some effort for Jack to avoid falling to his knees and rubbing his face against it, begging and crying. He’s suddenly aware of how empty he is—how empty he’s been. The worst is that his T-shirt is pushed up his torso, just to his tits, and his sweats are still around his knees. He tries to hop out of them, and Bitty says, “I didn’t say you could take those off.” Jack pulls them up again, impatient.

He does as Bitty asks and gets on the bed, on his back, knees bent and feet flat on the edge of the bed. “Scoot your ass down,” Bitty requests, and Jack does so. “You recognize this? It’s Daddy’s good oil. Twenty-six-ninety-five a liter from Whole Foods. Remember how I use it to make the olive oil cake you like?” Honestly, Jack can’t remember anything he’s ever eaten before in his life, but he agrees, and Bitty says, “So you’d better be _very_ sure you want this, because when Daddy uses his up his good EVOO and can’t make his award-winning champagne vinaigrette, he gets very frustrated.” Jack can’t, honestly, call to mind any salad dressing awards that Bitty has won, but whatever, if it gets that dick into Jack’s ass, Bitty can pretend he’s got his own restaurant in the French pavilion at EPCOT and Jack wouldn’t give a shit. Pretty much everything is making him hotter; he’s lost all critical thinking skills.

Bitty puts a hand on his own chest. “I didn’t know we were ready to do this, so I never got any of that KY we talked about. Daddy fucked up. I’m sorry, Jack. But I think it’s good to admit my mistakes when I make them, so that you can learn better. I was trying to decide between this and that strawberry hand soap my aunt keeps sending you for your birthday because you accidentally told her you liked it that one time instead of saying you could tell it was re-gifted and that she shouldn’t be such a cheap old so-and-so. But I went with the oil because, well. You’re my little virgin, I guess.”

Jack wishes he could help it, but he can’t; he bursts out laughing. “I’m not even,” he manages.

“Oh my god, Jack Zimmermann!” Bitty laughs, too, uncapping the oil. “I mean it, though, I seriously need this to finish off the chicken, so I hope we don’t run into any problems. It’s my best oil. My best oil for my best boy.” He pours out a palmful and rubs it against Jack’s ass. He dips his fingers in, slicks it around the rim, pushes it into Jack’s hole and uses his other hand to press up against his perineum with the heel of his hand. That’s still the best to Jack, and he relaxes, opens up. “You good?” Bitty asks him.

“I’m good,” Jack agrees.

“You want your daddy to fuck you?” Bitty asks.

“Please.”

“Say it.”

“Fuck me.”

“Who do you want to fuck you?” Jack knows better than to tug at his dick, but he reaches anyway. Bitty slaps away his hand. “Say it, Jack. Who do you want to fuck you?”

“Daddy,” he says. “Fuck me, Daddy, please? Please, I need it.”

“Okay, shhh.” Bitty soothes a hand over Jack’s stomach and stabilizes himself on one of Jack’s bent knees. He pushes in, just a little at a time, clenching one of Jack’s thick thighs harder every time he sinks deeper. When he’s fully settled, all in, he kisses Jack everywhere, against his bare skin or over his T-shirt: his chest, his neck, the underside of his jaw. Jack shifts his hips just a little; he can tell it’s a bad position, not the best angle for purchase on Bitty’s side of things.

But for Jack it’s perfect. He sees their bedroom lights in Bitty’s blond hair, looks into Bitty’s big, dark eyes. He gets rough friction from Bitty’s sweaty skating clothes against his straining, painfully full dick.

“That’s it,” Bitty whispers, catching it in his hand when Jack comes in slow, deep pulses. “Good boy. My good, good boy. I love you so much, baby. I’ll always take care of you.”

Jack is still coming when Bitty’s hand wraps around his half-spent dick, wet with really good olive oil and pretty standard come. Bitty keeps stroking him until he comes himself, panting over Jack’s strained cries of _daddy, daddy_ , which is all he’s able to say.

* * *

The next time Jack talks to his dad, he’s sitting in his car in the parking lot, still sweaty from a hard skate and still coasting on endorphins before he figures out what he wants to do next. Bitty’s at work and he doesn’t have anywhere to be until 6, when there’s a reception for—well, something, he can’t remember. But that’s not until later, and he’ll check his schedule when he gets home. The music he’s listening to fades out when the phone rings, and Jack hits the button on the steering wheel that takes the call before he sees who it is. He’s a little surprised when he hears his father’s thick French spill out of the speakers: “You mother wants me to check if you’re still planning to go to Georgia the first week of July, or if you had thought about hiking with us in the Dolomites. I haven’t been hiking in years. It should be fun. It would be a double-date, right? That’s cute. Your mother found this spa she’d like to try after, outside Innbruck. I think you’d like it. I think you’re up for the challenge.”

“Um.” Jack had forgotten all about this. He doesn’t blame himself. Well, he doesn’t blame himself _much_. He’s been doing—other things. He twists off the ignition. “Thanks for reminding me. She asked, but—I think Bittle probably wants to go see his parents. They don’t make it up so much, since his dad can’t get away during the seasons, and so I’ll check with him but Mom should make the reservations if she wants to. Don’t wait for us.”

Jack’s father says, “Well,” in such a neutral way that Jack can tell he expected that answer. His dad sighs, sounding weary. “You know,” he says, “you don’t have to go with him. Sometimes couples do things apart. It’s okay.”

Jack is horrified by the very thought. “But we’re apart a lot of the year when I go on the road. Summer’s when we hang out.”

“Oh, I know that. I guess we just miss our boy sometimes, you know?”

‘I know,” Jack agrees. “I just don’t want to go without him, right? And you’re coming down for the Habs game, so, I’ll see you then.”

“Send me a text next week so I can get Eric into the box with us.”

“Okay. Will do.”

“Call me more often,” Jack’s father tells him. “And be good for me, okay?”

“Okay,” Jack agrees. “Goodbye, Papa. Love you.”

He never says that to his dad. It startles him when it comes out of his mouth.

After a moment, his father says, “Love you, too. Give our love to Eric.”

“Of course.” Jack hits the hang-up button on the steering wheel, and ends the call. He twists the ignition, but for some reason, doesn’t slide the car into reverse so he can drive home. He’s wasting gas, and he feels bad, but—whatever. He reaches for his phone.

Unsure how he feels, he sits for a moment, stewing. He knows he has to say something, but, what? First he texts Bitty: “Good skate this morning. How’s work? I’m going to go home, eat something, shower. Where do we have to be at 6?”

Since Bitty is working, he won’t reply right away. Jack thumbs through the names in his text messages until he’s pretty far down. He opens up the thread he’s had going with Kent over the course of five different phones. It’s not long, but it goes back quite a while. He was never sure why he didn’t delete it. He wishes he had, so he wouldn’t have to text, “Thanks for dinner a few weeks ago. It was good for me. I think.”

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but what he gets is, _Jesus, Zimms, it’s 7 on my morning off, we won last night, let me sleep, what’s wrong with you?_

“A lot of things,” Jack writes back, and he doesn’t clarify. He doesn’t need to.

Kent knows.


End file.
